Egg
by owlquote
Summary: A sci-fi AU where the world has died and the Goblin King finds Sarah Williams asleep in an Egg-like pod. A short story for the K rating. Special thanks to kzal for beta services and her terrific help.
1. Chapter 1

**Beta services by kzal, who has done a fantastic job of helping me.**

 **This was written 9 months before a hiatus that saw me enter a strange period of depression of which I'm still... existing. After 6 months of attempted self-medication with cannabis and other drugs, publishing this (admittedly unfinished story) is... I guess... my way of forcing myself to reach a stable of place. Of saying 'hey! You need- you need to finish this... because it's up here. And you have to'. I'm rambling a bit, I suppose. I need to get out. I can't stay here. I feel so so stupid. Always stupid. Always stupid and pathetic. I want to go away and I don't want to wake up. But that's a stupid idea. So fucking stupid. Listen to me; aren't I pathetic? My father called me a vampire, always sucking his blood. My mum hightailed a long time ago. I can't do anything right, right? If I can't do anything then why does god make it so that I have to wake up everyday?**

* * *

 **Chapter I**

He was overseeing the revival of the Quarry Wastes when three goblins bounded up to him.

"Kingy! Kingy! We's found somethin'! Founds an Egg!"

And found an Egg they did. It was humongous, rivalling the size of a carriage and smooth, ovoid with a pristine, enamelled texture. It hummed with a static field as dust and dirt cascaded off it the second the cranes tugged it free from the rock. He stroked its surface with a gloved hand and felt the iciness radiate from the artefact even before his fingers could make contact. It was absorbing heat from its surroundings, he thought. But for what?

He pressed his lips together. "Take it to my lab."

They settled the Egg on a magnetic platform. It took a large truck and five of his personnel to transport the thing, and even then it took several days just to plan and navigate its ease through the entrance of his laboratory. Walls had to be cut, arches resized and panels shifted away. At the end, he watched seven robotic helpers wheel the curious object in and mechanically nudge it gently onto his measuring platform.

He circled it as his AI, Hoggle, read to him the reports and pre-analysis examination taken on-site. He paused at the wattage intake one of the presiding engineers had measured, and listened to speculations on the possible endothermic reactions occurring within its shell, as well as the radioactive count rate taken with a Geiger. Something very important was in it, the report concluded. Something the humans put a lot of effort into preserving.

"Or even keeping alive," Hoggle's cold voice resonated within the hangar-sized space. His head snapped to that and his eyes narrowed.

"Run an MRI and the usual. _Do not_ open it without my clear say so," he said sternly, eying the faint indentations imprinted into the surface. He ran his gloved fingers over the cold exterior again and paused. Something lingered against his fingertips, something that curled and fluttered fragilely; like a feeble butterfly, reacting to his magic. He did not know why, but unbidden, he stroked the surface as if to comfort the thing inside it, before snatching his hand away in surprise and turning away abruptly.

"How long will it take?"

"Three weeks for a full analysis on its structure, Your Majesty. Will this be one of your projects, Sire?"

He knew what Hoggle referred to. He recalled another one of his projects, an intricate Labyrinth simulator he had worked on ever since he was a little boy, and his kin existed beneath the boundaries of the Earth's surface where the humans milled about. It was his _magnum opus_ , stories he authored into walls and winding pathways. He had a feeling about this one, and he needed something to take his mind off the Revival efforts.

"Call it 'Egg', Hoggle." He announced resolutely. "And yes. Please notify me as soon as you're finished."

"Very well, Your Majesty."

They called him 'The Goblin King', but before the nuclear fallout he was simply called _Jareth_. In the age of mankind, the humans had fantasised them into medieval poetry and romantic water-colour; but the centuries of existence before humans began mashing branches together for fire meant that their civilisation was far more advanced than theirs.

They had originated as a subterranean people, and their appearances initially reflected as such. Unlike humans however, who sought to splay their reach into the stars, Fae ambition brought them through the dimensional layer. Where man worked to colonise Mars, Fae studied the expansion of inter-dimensional pockets and spatial manipulation. They were spread out now, far into another world— but Earth would always be their home.

Then war came: Mutually Assured Destruction, or M.A.D and that was assuredly what came of it. India and Pakistan came to blows, when always it had be assumed that the first to pull the trigger would be Russia, or North Korea. Allies and checkers blurred the difference through five years, and then the sickness pervaded. And nobody won.

"Do you think there are weapons inside it?" Korvia inquired one evening, wine glass between lithe fingers. Her mouth was red and welcoming, and the Goblin King had spent the period of the ball watching the lines of her lips.

"Perhaps," the Goblin King laughed. "Is that what everybody has been discussing? My recent acquisition?"

"It could be medicine they hoarded during the war, Jareth. Or why amour it so indomitably?" Duke Morqueny chose this moment to intrude, much to the Goblin King's annoyance. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be curious."

"Or it could be nothing." Korvia's eyes sparkled impishly. She had seen the King's eyes glide over her, and witnessed the ire of the interrupted the moment Morqueny came over. She touched his arm soothingly and led him away. "But come, let us talk of more immediate things."

Later that night, Hoggle's cold voice issued tinnily from the speakers. "Sire, there's something that requires your attention." He rubbed his eyes and got up slowly from his bed, careful not to awaken his bedmate.

"What is it?" He asked, voice husky from sleep. His bedmate shifted, red hair splayed across the sheets, and he immediately repaired to the balcony on muted footsteps.

"Sire?"

"Speak."

"There's been an issue with imaging the complete interior of the Egg, Your Majesty. We cannot compile a satisfactory scan. The exterior material is too dense and we risk interrupting the operations ongoing within the Egg." He blinked, now fully awake. "Operations?"

"Yes, Sire. Would you like to see the unfinished report?"

He looked cautiously behind his back at the figure still asleep on his bed. "Show it to me in text form," he ordered, and a holographic image promptly sprang up in front of him. Jareth's eyes scanned the words and took in the graphs before swearing softly.

"Sire?"

"I'm going to my lab," he announced, thoughts and biochemistry swirling in his brain. In his head he recalled an old human body-weight to energy intake chart, and ancient statistics he flipped through while at the now preserved human Smithsonian Museum. If his calculations were correct…

He padded into the area, still nude and long used to the iciness reverberating up into his feet from the linoleum floor. Accordingly, the lights and machinery flickered on the minute he stepped in. Immediately, he went over to the Egg.

"Sire?"

"Quiet," he ordered. The Goblin King placed a naked hand on the exterior. Immediately, he felt that swirl of energy, a faint pulse of life trickling out and caressing his palm with shy inquisitiveness. It fluttered before shying away, peeking out from a metaphorical barrier. Pulling his hand away and sitting down, stunned, he ordered Hoggle to pull up the half-finished scans.

He sucked in a deep breath and traced the monochrome outline of the blurred figure on the hologram. His suspicions were correct. "It's a human, Hoggle," he said breathlessly in awe. "A child. Female, I think." His mind whirled back to the charts and words of earlier. "And the human is still alive," he breathed in shock.

A human, still alive. Right here, breathing in his lab. His hands shook with wonder, at the possibilities and the experiments he could run; the amount of research he could gather just from this. Unconsciously, he placed his palm on the Egg.

The life force within blinked and touched it timidly, enquiringly.

He yanked his hand back as if he had touched hot coals. Pressing his hand against his chest, he breathed heavily for a moment. The energy within was clearly feminine, an iridescent green in color, and young— perhaps ten.

He extricated his palm and studied it for a moment in dazed silence.

A human child.


	2. Chapter 2

**In my defence, weirder stuff have been rated K+**

 **Thank you so much for those who have expressed their worry. I don't mean to cause alarm, but it's nice to vent and be heard.**

* * *

"She's dreaming," the Goblin King proclaimed to no one. He chugged from his mug of juice and surveyed his lab.

Over the months, the normally immaculate area had become disordered, a fold-up bed hazardously shoved in one corner and sheafs of paper in disarray on the floor. His screen had not been turned off for a long time, and was now filled with ever-changing numbers and pictures.

He had become obsessed with trying to capture a full outline of the girl within the pod, a pattern of half-realised scans on his light board. They couldn't use X-ray, and even magnetic resonance was risky. The only magical means of ascertaining her appearance was through her dreams, and even that was unreliable.

Dreams change. They warped and took you to places far beyond the holds of reality. You could be in the most whackiest scene imaginable, and nothing would feel out of place. So far, the girl dreamt herself as sixteen, and even a young boy once (which had been absurdly confusing). She had memories still lingering in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex of the brain, but rifling through them, especially with the chemicals sustaining her, was out of the question.

He had long given up trying to pry open the Egg, after sussing out the risks and consequences: both of disrupting the wires he knew now connected her, and exposure to the changed environs of his surroundings. On one hand, they had a slim chance of waking her, but on the other, she had a major chance of going into a fatal cardiac arrest once she did.

It would be a painful way to die.

It seemed that wherever he tried to take her, he would meet a dead end. Open pod. Cardiac arrest. Bio-electric neurological treatment to gently wake her. Haemorrhaging. Introduce static responsive nano-liquids to get a full colour image. Seizure.

He was starting to tear his hair out.

Sighing after another fruitless day, he put his hand on the pod. It had already begun to be a habit, sitting on a chair by her side and drifting off to watch her in dreams.

She was lying face up on the grass. For a moment, his heart stopped.

She looked as if she was dead.

Then her hand shot out to wave off a fly buzzing about her nose, and he relaxed.

There was a book in her arms, and upon close inspection he read ' _The Lady of Shallot_ ' upon the cover. He sighed. At the cusp of adolescence, she was such a drama queen.

He was about to sit on the ground far away from her, when a high-pitched little voice spooked him from the back. "You're supposed to carry her," she said in hushed tones, eyes on herself still lying on the ground a few feet away from them.

He raised his eyes and looked down at himself. So she could see him, and he was in humanoid form. Interesting.

"Why?" He asked, deciding to humour her.

Unlike the one in the damask gown with eyelashes feathering her fair cheeks on the ground, this Sarah was in an embroidered vest and poet's shirt, her short hair clipped back by a single, plain barrette.

"She needs to wake up. She needs to see the waking world," she whispered. Her eyes were glowing with excitement, rippling with strange anticipation. She seemed to hold a nova being birthed in the palm of her hand, and was watching— waiting, for the big bang.

He looked at the drifting phantasm in the water, suddenly feeling vulnerable. "She's not sleeping, precious."

"Yes, she is," Sarah answered indignantly. "Wake her… please? It's so sad… Lying down there forever. It gets… so… _cold_."

The Goblin King sat down on the edge, gathering the little girl into his lap. He held her and hummed into her hair; some lonely melody from the echo of a memory. "She's warm enough in her dreams, precious one," he murmured, but the girl shook her head stubbornly— though she clutched to his arm for comfort.

"It's not the same," she whispered, eyes riveted to the girl in the water. "The stories in our dreams and what we see in the morning… Do you think that's why people don't want to wake up?"

"I don't know, precious," Jareth said gently. "But the stories I've given to you. Don't you like them?"

She worried her lip, the manner all at once a reminder that she was just a little child. Sarah gave a timid shrug, her liquid green eyes peering shyly up at him. "They're nice… but… do you know why people like stories?" A little smile spread on her face, as realisation suddenly pooled across her mind.

"Because they're not real." Jareth answered confidently, but deep inside, something faltered. Little wyverns restlessly prowling in a glass bottle, the sea of knowledge accumulated over the years— only now they wriggled with unease. Stories? He wrote them. Characters and word lines he pried from the secret places behind his molars, scrolled on fingernails. But this girl, this Delphic girl with a smile like a constellation. She made him think that perhaps the seas children travailed were far beyond his.

"Nope," she grinned, ecstatic with her secret knowledge. He was right, and he was wrong. And the man blinked at the little girl like an even smaller little boy.

* * *

Korvia tilted her head as she considered him.

"You've been distracted lately," she informed him smilingly. Wordlessly, he saluted her with his wine glass for her apt observation.

They lounged about in a simulator room, enjoying the veldt and the animals roaming the dry plains. The herd of wildebeests; long, bovine faces grazing the grass, restlessly bordered the waterhole. Occasionally they looked up with drenched muzzles and gazed vacantly at the area around them.

Behind, up in a lone tree, an Ufiti studied them with intelligent, beady eyes.

Their comforts suited the theme of the location: a trove of white cushions and gauzy mosquito curtains. A low table of glasses and assorted wine was placed between them, scented candles effusing sandalwood lazily on the floor.

Korvia was clad in tan and beige, her collar curving low around her sumptuous breasts with loose red ringlets escaping the twist at the nape of her neck; scattering across her lovely shoulders. She refilled the wine glass he dangled between loose fingers, watching the Ufiti, sinuous with muscle shifting rapidly beneath its midnight fur as it tensed. The creature sniffed lightly at the air— long, wicked tusks grazing the bark of the tree, before leaping off the branches and landing lightly on the ground.

"Is work eating away at you, Your Majesty?" Korvia asked, daintily placing a génoise madeleine to his mouth. Jareth bit into it delicately, all the while not looking at her face. He was fixated on the stalking in front of them.

One of the prey creatures, an elderly wildebeest, suddenly looked up from the rippling surface of the water pool. It's nostrils flared— a steaming wet red, before it turned around slowly and screamed.

The creatures scrambled and the monster leapt upwards. One of the younglings was caught, and subsequently fell shrieking to the ground.

"Who wrote this?" The Goblin King asked carefully, watching the chase with brooding eyes. Korvia raised an eyebrow from where she nestled herself into the crook of his arm.

"Wrote what?"

"This." He gestured impatiently at the scene. "Who wrote this scene?"

"Your company, I suppose," Korvia answered in mild alarm. "Daburinthos Industries operates the sims, so the person who wrote this scene is… one of your engineers, I assume…?"

They were interrupted by a guttural scream as another wildebeest fell, its rear end split into messy chunks of dripping crimson, its muzzle gored. There was a wild look in its eyes as the Ufiti tore it apart.

"What's gotten into you lately, Jareth? You've been strange."

"Have I?" Jareth murmured thoughtfully. Like a master with his cat, he stroked Korvia's chin placatingly before running his fingers through her hair. In response, she curled more tightly against his frame, nuzzling her red lips into his arm. She rubbed a bare foot along his thigh enticingly, but the Goblin King stopped her merely with a lack of response.

"I've merely been wondering Korvia…" his voice trailed off, and his companion immediately knew her King had entered one of his fugue states; where he idly pondered on the mysteries of the universe and whatnot. Discreetly, she hid an eye roll and plucked a longan fruit off the tower display before popping it in her mouth. "About?" She prompted, long nails fishing another bit of fruit and trailing it slowly across his lips.

Jareth flashed her a quick smile, his tongue darting out to scoop the black cherry into his mouth. "Wondering about sims, my dear. They're meant to be reflective of Earth's nature before the humans ruined it… and yet…"

"Yet…?" Korvia needled, leaning in to kiss away droplets of black cherry juice collecting at the corner of his mouth. She stroked his face fondly before pulling away, but not before showing him another encouraging smile.

"How do we know that Ufitis hunt by watching from the trees? How do we know the way they lunge, run, hunt? Perhaps this sim is being presumptuous."

"Perhaps _you're_ being presumptuous," Korvia teased coyly. "Talking about philosophy with a beautiful woman in your lap. A normal man would wonder if you've forfeited your sanity, _Your Majesty_ ," she purred lowly into his ear, retreating slowly but not before leaving one sly nip on his earlobe.

"They're reasonable questions, Korvia," Jareth answered with a pale eyebrow raised.

"Perhaps," she chuckled and fluttered her eyelashes mischievously. "But they're not questions for _you_ , Goblin King. You should only be concerned with kingdom and _me_."

With an amused growl, Jareth's eyes narrowed predatorily before he lunged at her and turned her bodily so she was under him.

* * *

Anono: I'm slightly ashamed but looking back, I admit that I terrified myself with my nightmares and anger. I think substance abuse contributed to my mood swings, and I've even hurt myself after going into rage. I do talk to people but I've not had formal help since moving to the UK. I've been stalling on it, honestly... but thank you :)

foxchick1: yes. sorry sorry

Guiltilyinnocent: Thank you. Nuclear threat is kind of an ironic joke these days, since it genuinely is a serious thing... but also, not really, because of MAD policy. This was always meant to be a short story because I don't think a sci-fi Labyrinth story would be welcome in the fandom XD

mickeydawn995: It's always awesome to have supportive people around you. I have a friend worse off than me, and her mum tells me she's basically waiting for the day they call her and tell her her daughter killed herself. I'm not confident posting ANYTHING, and reviews always terrify me. I tell myself I don't care, but I'm really just bullshitting myself. That's kind of the irony behind the posting of this fic, and why this update is so late. YOLO is not the answer for everyone, but make something you can be happy with! I look forward to it :)

Jetredgirl: Thank you. I love your work by the way!

blackpearly: Thank you. Honestly, this is a pretty simple story but I'm honoured that you like it :)

/

It's a little embarrassing reading my rant in the last chapter. Things were _really_ bad, just so utterly out of control. Looking back now from a much stable place, it's a little cringey- but I also don't regret it. I was mad and upset all the time. Some people call it a tantrum, some people call it moodiness, but the weird thing about depression at first is that... you know it's a cycle. You know you have problems, you know the steps to take to solve them, but they just don't _work_. Everything is hollow, empty. The contents of days scooped out and you're stuck rattling in a rotting husk. You don't like waking up- and you hate going to sleep. People become caricatures you struggle to connect with, and you just want _out_ \- but sometimes you don't want to do anything at all; you just want to close your eyes. You can't make up your mind about things, and those tiny little things send you off into a breakdown about what a useless person you are. It's not a question of being happy. It's a question of being stuck.

And you take it out on people inadvertently. You're angry, and for me, that means you want someone to get hurt. Does it really matter who? People are caricatures, remember, and they're so full of shit. They're just walking blood bags that shit and bleed when they get cut. ((wow that's some criminal minds stuff right there))

Heavy dark metal emo aside, I'm sorry for the late update. Frankly thought about taking this down. I'm not a good writer, and I have terrible self-esteem. So I'm bolstering my esteem by trying not to be a coward and just... do whatever the hell it is I do. And do self-therapy in the meantime. Win-win.

\


End file.
